PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - de Candia, Antonio AU - Gamba, Andrea AU - Cavalli, Fausto AU - Coniglio, Antonio AU - Di Talia, Stefano AU - Bussolino, Federico AU - Serini, Guido TI - A Simulation Environment for Directional Sensing as a Phase Separation Process AID - 10.1126/stke.3782007pl1 DP - 2007 Mar 20 TA - Science's STKE PG - pl1--pl1 VI - 2007 IP - 378 4099 - http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2007/378/pl1.short 4100 - http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2007/378/pl1.full SO - Sci. STKE2007 Mar 20; 2007 AB - The ability of eukaryotic cells to navigate along spatial gradients of extracellular guidance cues is crucial for embryonic development, tissue regeneration, and cancer progression. One proposed model for chemotaxis is a phosphoinositide-based phase separation process, which takes place at the plasma membrane upon chemoattractant stimulation and triggers directional motility of eukaryotic cells. Here, we make available virtual-cell software that allows the execution and spatiotemporal analysis of in silico chemotaxis experiments, in which the user can control physical and chemical parameters as well as the number and position of chemoattractant sources.